Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9407260048
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By CHRIS COLSTON Special to the Roanoke Times & World-News
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
- Found etched on a wooden bar table during a recent regional tournament.
Some may call it an alternative sport for alternative people. So what if the favored mode of transportation for a player is a mountain bike?
Ultimate Frisbee combines different ingredients of soccer, basketball, cross country and flag football. ``And rugby,'' said a Virginia Tech graduate student known simply as Slow Lane. ``I mean as far as the beer-drinking part.''
Golf, it's not.
Jack Murphy, a native Californian, is sort of the Blacksburg Frisbee guru. He's been playing since 1984.
``It's a game of running, throwing and catching,'' Murphy said. ``Everybody is a quarterback AND a wide receiver, and they're playing both roles non-stop.''
Added Don Hatfield, a Virginia Tech professor in the College of Business: ``It's kind of like soccer on steroids.''
Basic precept of ultimate Frisbee: Try not to hurt anybody.
Now for the rules. This won't take long. There aren't many.
You can play with a clock or to points (in the New River Valley, first to 15 wins). Games to points take about two hours. The field is 70 yards long, 40 yards wide and has 25-yard-deep end zones. There are two teams of seven players each.
Players cannot run with the disc, but must plant a pivot foot (as in basketball) and throw it to a teammate. When holding the disc, a player gets a 10-count from the nearest defender. If the disc isn't thrown in time, it's called a ``stall'' and the defense takes over.
If the offensive team drops the disc, catches it out of bounds or fails to complete a pass because a defender blocks the pass, the other team picks up the disc where it lands and works to score in the other direction. Defenders generally play either a man-to-man or zone defense, as in basketball.
This is a non-contact sport, and it's a foul to hit the other player or hit the disc while it's being held.
By the way: there are no referees.
The ultimate thrill of Ultimate Frisbee: Well, it's not winning.
The driving force of Ultimate is sportsmanship and respect. ``The No. 1 thing by far is the spirit of the game,'' Slow Lane said. ``You're on your honor. If they added referees, I wouldn't play.''
Like a pick-up hoop game, you call your own fouls. ``There is an implicit assumption that nobody in Ultimate would try to cheat,'' Hatfield said.
This principle is what makes the sport special to so many people.
Unlike a pick-up hoop game, taunting is not cool. Ex-Detroit Piston thug - er, center - Bill Laimbeer could never have played Ultimate, although he does have an Ultimate-kind of last name.
There is no truth to the rumor that some people only play because they get to scream ``Ultimate!'' to begin a game.
Like any good sport, Ultimate has its own special terminology. ``Laying out'' in the end zone means diving horizontally to catch a scoring pass.
Speaking of passes, there are a variety of them. For instance, a forehand is called a Flick; an overhead throw is a Hammer, which seems to come in handy near the goal line; and the biggie, the Huck, is like a bomb in football. ``That's the best throw,'' says Blacksburg native Zack Jasie. ``There's nothing like a good Huck.''
Most common method of recruiting an Ultimate player: If you see someone walking by, ask ``Hey, you wanna play?''
Despite the various walks of life - men, women, high schoolers, college professors, the long-haired, the buzz-cut, black, white and what have you - the mood is relaxed.
Slow Lane, you see, does have a real name - John Brauner - but few of his teammates know it. ``We went to his house last summer and we called his parents Mr. and Mrs. Lane,'' said Jon Schulz, an economics graduate at Tech. ``By the end of the night we were calling his mother `Lois.'''
``In Ultimate, we normally don't talk about last names,'' said Hatfield. Er, Don.
Most popular mode of pet at an ultimate Frisbee tournament: Dog.
No Ultimate practice or tournament game is complete without dogs. They go with the sport like chocolate chip cookies go with a cold glass of milk.
``There was a tournament in Knoxville where this team was running great plays all the way down the field when three or four dogs wandered onto the field,'' Jasie said. ``This one guy had to dive over three dogs for a score. It was awesome.''
Favorite Frisbee foods: Pregame - bagels, spaghetti. Postgame -Taco Bell and beers.
Most every Saturday night of a tournament, the host team hosts a party. ``It keeps things sociable,'' said Attila Agoston (yep, that's his real name). ``It's a great way to meet the other players.''
Sometimes those parties can lead to a long-term romance.
``I played in a tournament last month that started with a wedding,'' Jasie said. ``The couple met through playing Ultimate.''
School and jobs, basically, are just things to keep Ultimate players busy between games.
``Tournaments are big,'' Jasie said. ``We go to one just about every weekend. We hit North Carolina a lot. We even went to Buffalo once. It's no big deal to drive 10 hours to get somewhere, because we like the people we're with.''
Interested? Any budding Frisbee players are welcome to show up on the Drillfield each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday between 6:30 and 8 p.m.
by CNB